Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Spiritual Ballet

I
was astonished when I saw my first ballet performed on stage. I had seen ballet
in films and on television, accompanied only by the music of an orchestra. But
as I sat in Philadelphia’s Academy of Music (Eugene Ormandy conducting, of
course) in 1975, I also heard the sounds of the dancers’ feet as they pivoted
and pirouetted, leapt and landed on the floor of the stage, a gentle brushing
as windblown leaves on a sidewalk punctuated by occasional, muted squeaks from
their soles and the barely audible groans of the floor boards.

It
brought my ethereal fantasy of ballet down to earth! Until then it had seemed lighter
than air, with moves and postures and flights that seemed wholly spiritual, not
the performance of flesh and blood, muscles and gravity.

You
know where I am going with this. My surprise is paralleled by the
disillusionment of spiritual seekers discovering that our liturgical
choreography, no matter how sublime or how simple, cannot cover the reality
that we are bodies whose friction with earth, with God, with ourselves and with
one another reminds us that spirituality is flesh and blood, muscles and
gravity.

That
means training is required. And forgiveness when someone misses their cue. And Samuel
Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief.”

That
was the case when scenery fell over with a crash during one of the premiere
performances of the start-up Los Angeles Ballet. So supportive was the
audience, we felt the embarrassment of the performers and stage crew while
continuing to enjoy their inaugural efforts.

Boredom
is another matter. When I saw the Bolshoi perform in Los Angeles before the demise
of their country’s totalitarian ideology, their rigidly conservative ways of doing
ballet literally put me to sleep.

Spiritual
communities have much to offer, but only if we individually practice what is
preached. Houses of worship cannot do our work for us. But they remind us that the spiritual
enterprise is not an out-of-body, out-of-community experience. In truth, they
incarnate the very muscle and gravity, flesh and blood we need on the spiritual
path.

2 comments:

As someone who prefers ballet from the closest seat possible, I've heard the squeaks and seen the feet catching their balance. Now I wonder if there is a seat closer to the flesh and blood "dancers" in my life.

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ABOUT CHRIS...

Chris Glaser has a ministry of writing and speaking. Since graduation from Yale Divinity School in 1977, Chris has served in a variety of parish, campus, editorial, and interim posts. He has spoken to hundreds of congregations, campuses, and communities throughout the U.S. and Canada, and published a dozen best-selling books on spirituality, sexuality, vocation, contemplation, scripture, sacrament, theology, marriage, and death.